[Kieran looks positively delighted by this discovery. By which, of course, I mean, he keeps up that polite little smile.]

I thought so! You seem almost perfectly winter-hearted to me. It certainly fits, if you could endure a climate like that.

[Maybe he ought to tread lightly? The concept of secrecy is not one that an open book like Kieran is really prepared to handle, especially if it's for a fellow forest child. Having grown up in the bosom of his herd, he's never needed to keep it secret, but this is something very important to his kind, and surely he ought to honor that? Kieran's brow furrowed ever-so-slightly in confusion.]

I'm not sure I can tell you everything, but I don't think it could hurt to tell you what you probably already know. Winter's a hard time. A lot of the Sawsbucks who set out on their own in winter don't survive it.

A Sawsbuck who evolves in winter will come to understand some pretty painful things! All the isolation and hunger, the helpless suspension of life -- we'll know these things better than any other season. But enduring those things builds us up, too. We are the roots that hold the tree up. The steadfast, the dependable, the sentinels.

I guess you can tell why I don't seem very wintery at all, but I can see it in you, Guardian of the Sacred Grove.